amos visits kinfolk

June 19, 2003

Editor’s Note: Amos is a churchmouse, unable to use the keyboard shift keys and unschooled in the art of punctuation.
With the coming of summer and the annual dust bowl weather on the Plains, amos started feeling a little lonely. Every time he saw a little daisy sprouting through the ground or the tender young grass blades blowing in the wind, he became more and more homesick to see some of his family — especially his little niece, Annie Marie.

boss i guess you heard
that i was trying to
leave town on the next
mouse train
it s true i ve packed
my samsonite cheesecloth
traveling bags and i m
on my way to the
bugtussle train station

i can t wait to see
some of my country
cousin field mice in
house melrose muleshoe
and some even in the
faraway stretches of
the texas panhandle
but the one i really
want to see is my
little niece annie
marie i tell you boss
she sets the prairie
ablaze with her mousy
beauty and youthful
joie de vivre

but boss when she looks
up at me with those
big brown eyes
my old gray whiskers
droop to the floor
and soon i m playing
horsey or hide-and-seek
or cheeseball keepaway
or sometimes we ll
just sit on a couple of
padded thimbles and
watch big bird and bert
and ernie on sesame
street
so boss as i sit in the
bugtussle train
station waiting for
the midnight mouse
express it seemed so
natural just to grab
a notepad and pen
and jot down a little
poem for annie marie

ode to annie marie

once upon a
snuffle-up-a-gus
there was a
russle-on-a-mus
now he was kin to a
rhine-os-a-pot-a-mus
but he was such an
awful-little-cuss
and mean as an ornery
hic-a-pus

but one day while riding on his
snuffle-up-a-gus
he decided to jump off and hop
on a hustle-bustle-bus
you see he wanted to stir up
a rumple-stumple-fuss
and chew on some
fuzzy-ruffle-stuff

but when he jumped on the
hustle-bustle-bus
his tail-er-ron-a-mus got stuck
in the swinging
swack-a-sore-e-us
and he yelled to high
hassel-dor-e-us
and never again was he a mean
and ornery hic-a-pus
but he was the nicest
russel-on-a-mus
to ever ride on a
snuffle-up-a-gus
amos
p s — boss sometimes it
takes a little pain to
straighten us out and get
us back on the right path
again as the russel-on-a-mus
found out in the poem
i ll be back next
week be sure to keep the
coffee brewing
i think i ll take
your suggestion and
try a little sugar and
creamer in it because
it still makes my
tail too kinky